
Class ^P_2L2fc£5^ 



Copyrigh 



COEXRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE 
SONG OF LIFE 



BY 

JOHN J. LANIER 

Fredericksburg, Va. 



f 






^^ 



x'^ 



A 



Copyright, 1919 

By John J. Laxier 

All rights reserved 



MAY ;-P !^^^ 
5CI.A515773 



^ -A. -5 I 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Pboem 7 

The Pipes of Pan 9 

The Bibth of Manhood 27 

Manhood 35 

My Soul and the Sea 39 

The Menagerie 47 

The Stoic 52 

The Mystic 56 

The Light Burns Down 59 

The Choir Invisible 62 



INTEODUCTION 

One day my friend. Lieutenant Edward E. 
Piatt, saw The Song of Life, which I had bound 
into a little book, lying on my desk and asked me to 
let him read it. After reading it he returned it to 
me with the following note : 

My dear Lanier: 

I see the good thing that you have sought to do; 
and I perceive that your argosies have returned with 
the Golden Fleece. 

Where all are good, comparison were invidious, 
but The Menagerie, The Stoic, and The Mystic 
have the magic of true music; while The Light 
Burns Down is as exquisite as a cameo. 

My richest wish for you, dear Poet, is that you 
shall follow the Pipes o' Pan until they shall lead 
you to stand within the empyrean and wear the 
amaranth of the victor. 

Faithfully yours, 

Platt. 



It is this commendation by my friend, in 
whose ability as a judge of poetry I have con- 
fidence, that has decided me to publish this little 
book of verses. 

The Author, 

John J. Lanier. 
Fredericksburg, Va. 
Feb. 15, 1919. 



THE SOJS^G OF LIFE 

The Song of Life is not a miscellaneous 
collections of poems but an organic unity. 
No poem, therefore, should be judged save 
in connection with the whole, which is a 
poetic and symbolic interpretation of life. 



PROEM 



The soDg of life I sing ! 
The glory of our youth 
When love is king ! 

The war the soul doth wage 

To live eternal truth ! 
And make 
The discord and the strife 

A harmony of life ! 

II 

This is the song I sing ! 
For poets know and feel all things 
That we have ever felt before, 
Or dream in our imaginings ! 

They lead to distant lands, 
Oe'r stormy seas and desert sands,* 

In search of hidden lore. 
Onward ! where they have gone before, 

They lead us on forevermore ! 



YOUTH 

The songs of Pan I sing ! 
Who makes the glories of our youth 

When love is king, 
And breathes the spirit that uplifts 
The souls of those who loves his gifts 
And his commands ! 



THE PIPES OF PAN 

I. THE COMING OF PAN 

In this enchanted hour ! 
Lend ye, moon and stars, 
The magic of your power 
To the conspiracy of Pan ! 

For now the Sun god comes 
In every glade and glen 
To kiss 
The Spring to life again ! 

And bring the great god Pan 
Who soon will piping come 

To waken love 
In heart of maid and man 
Since time began ! 
9 



II 

The Sun god banishes 
The Winter into nothingness ! 

And as it vanishes 
The Spring enthralls the world 
By her eternal grace and 
Loveliness, 
But not more fair than maid I 

For then, ^tis said, 
There comes the Pipes of Pan 
Sounding through wood and vale, 

That never fail 
To snare the heart of youth, 
By the sweet magic of the maid. 
Whose hand in hers is laid ! 

Then hail! All hail to Pan! 

Who piping comes to wake 
Love in the heart of man and maid, 

And make 
Her love answer the love of man 
And then — ! 
10 



moon ! stars ! gentle wind ! 
nature splendor robed and 

Glorified ! 
And man and maiden deified 
By Pan, 
Lip answering lip with love divine 
Since time began ! 



11 



III. A GIFT FOB YOU, MY LOVE 

While in my heart I was divining 
A gift for you, my love, to-night, 
I saw in heaven's airs reclining 
Some angels fairer than the light. 

In dark eyes much deep love expressing. 
Uprose the tallest and began: 
" This gift from heaven goes confessing 
The love the angels bear to man. 

" Since love's the secret power moving 
The soul of all things here above. 
With all your kind and sweet approving. 
We make the heart of this of love.'^ 
12 



A soft robed angel spake, revealing 
More her thought with eye than word, 
And naught her thought with word concealing, 
What with applause the others heard. 

''As love is sweetest love when bounded 
With links that make it ever sure, 
The heart of this must be surrounded 
With meetest emblem of the pure." 

Then said another angel rising, 
Possessed of youth forever young. 
The words to suit her thoughts devising 
In softest accents of her tongue: 

^'SiQce love's that pure must live forever, 
As doth her fair twin sister, truth. 
From this our gift we must not sever 
The emblem of eternal youth.'' 



13 



Love, youth, and purity expressing 
In one gift passing fair, they boast. 
Which puts beyond all doubt and guessing 
That which the angels love the most. 

" This gift,'^ said they, " shall be a flower. 
Soft pillowed on the level mere. 
Its head above green leaves shall tower. 
And lily will we call it here. 

Its heart of gold shall be exposing. 
Its calyx leaves the richest green. 
Its petals to the earth disclosing 
The purest white that e'er was seen/' 

The snow tint from their bosoms taking. 
So white and pure in heaven's air. 
They to the petals gave while making. 
Creating thus the lily fair. 



14 



" The white and gold and green combining,' 
Said they, " bear this blest emblem true, 
Of pure young love in one entwining 
The lives and loves and hearts of two." 

And when I see the lily blowing, 
The angels* fair created gift, 
I feel my heart within me glowing, 
And to my love my eyes I lift! 

And to her gaze the lily showing, 
Its sheen of white and gold and green. 
When in her eyes comes love's light flowing. 
Of angels all I crown you queen ! 

IV. THE SERENADE 

For you and me 
The glowing twilight throws 
Her beauty o'er the earth and sea. 

And clasps in her fair arms 
My soul filled with the sweet alarms 
Of all your charms ! 
15 



come, my love ! 
For heaven is with stars abloom, 
And mingles with her shining light 
The rose's blushed perfume 
For you and me tonight ! 

come, my love! 
For soon the moon will rise 
And veil the starlight eyes 
That shine in heaven blue, 

But not dim thine 
For when they shine 
There is no night for you 
And me ! 



ministering spirits of the night ! 
Steal round our path with flowers strown. 
From meadow green and mountain height 
Trooping your forms with graceful zone. 
16 



But let tliem come with harp in hand, 
Prepared with nature's tuned sound, 
To sing and peal with joyous band 
The beauty of the world around. 



see, my love! from far-off land 

Of orange, lemon, cocoa tree. 
The shining spirits round us stand 
And tune their lutes for you and me ! 

From misty ocean's bluest wave 
They come with dancings airy light. 
From silent island, grot, and cave 
They stand mysteriously bright. 

They come from moonlit shore 
Of tropic isle low rocked in blue — 
love! such forms of radiant hue 
Were never seen before 
I first saw you! 



17 



VI 

Now in the circling ring 

The Dew begins to sing; 

Her arms are bare. 

Draped with her golden hair. 

Her swift light fingering 
Plies on from string to string; 
listen, love, the minstrelsy 

She sings for you and me. 

As the lengthening shadows 
Creep, 
I bring on the soft blown wings 
Of sleep 
New life for everything: 

For the shrivelled blade of 
Grass 
That would wither and fade away 
Alas! 
At close of day ; 



18 



For the leaves that shimmer in 
Their shining sheen 

Of purple and gold and green 
They glimmer in; 

The rose I wake with a kiss. 

And open 
The beautiful eyes men miss 
In the soul that is hidden 
In everything. 



VII 

Ah, love, her song hath ceased ! 
And now the spirit of the flowers 
Glides from the snowy breasted band. 
And charms the swiftly passing hours 
With airs known only to her land. 
And thus she softly sings : 

My realm, undiscovered by 

Telescope, 
More beautiful far than on 

Poets ope 
A bright world of inspired 

Thought, 
19 



Doth swing far beyond the 

Pleiades, 
A star-lighted world that 

Seer ne'er sees 
In his rapt lone visions 

Wrought. 

I reign there in state and 
Perfumes make 

The fair fashioned flowers 
Thirst to slake 

With the richest scented 
Draught. 

And thus in the light, and thus 

In the gloom, 
The air is all filled with rich 

Perfume 
By the distillations of my 

Craft. 



20 



And oh ! a great wonder it is 

To see 
The myriad bright hues there 

Made by me 
In a low wind's changeful 

Rhyme, 

For the decking of the flowers 

Born 
Just at the blest time before 

The dawn. 
Ere the morning light begins 

To chime. 

VIII 

Blest spirit of the flowers, 
How swiftly pass the golden hours 
Your sweet enchantments bring! 

But see, my love, in yonder ring 
Come dancing nymphs from leafy shade, 
In rainbow gossamer arrayed. 
To hear the South Wind sing. 



21 



Her dark eyes flash and shine 
Like thine, 
Her voice grows sweet and strong 
As swells the music of her song. 

I bring the velvet greens 

And purple sheens 
Out of the southern seas! 

And then 

I spring on bounding wing 

Away! Away! All day! 

And dance and play 
Among the grass and trees 
And over the waters low! 

And gently trip 
The blushing rose's lip 
To kiss! 



22 



The red, red rose I kiss! 

Ah, bliss! 
For when her lips I kiss 
All lovely thoughts come 

Everywhere 
I roam the rounded sphere 



Among the scented vines! 
The music of the whispering pines ! 
The starlight and the flowers 

With honeyed nectar 
For sweet bees in fairy bowers ! 

O! everywhere 
The earth enchanting spreads 

To where 
A youth for love a maiden weds ! 
Ah there 
My softest pinions veer I 



23 



And spreading wide them find! 

Ah them I find ! 

Their lives I bind 
With love and flowers twined ! 

On this glad night! 
Pour out, moon and stars, 
The glory of your light! 
And blow, forever blow, ye winds 
The love that sends 
The youthful heart which sings 
The everlasting beauty of 
These things ! 

The glory of the waving sea 

For you and me! 
The music of the blowing wind 

For you and me! 
The stars from heaven bend 

For you and me! 



24 



The mountains and the vales. 
With hidden ferns in mossy dales, 

For you and me! 
The grassy plains and diamond dew 
With shining suns shot through 

Por you and me! 

When God made these for you and me 
He placed the titles in our hands 
Of more than royal sceptered thrones 
Endowed with richest lands ! 

love ! poor is the crowned king 
Of vastest realm, 
Though boasting armies and the mind 
Which could the world overwhelm, 
To those who find 
That nature's God to them hath flung 
The poet's soul, harp strung, 
Which makes the things we see 
A glory and a melody 
For you and me 1 



25 



THE BIRTH OF MANHOOD 



27 



THE BIETH OF MANHOOD 

From sleep, or more than sleep, we wake. 
If sleep or dreams we call those times 
In which we know ourselves as that 
Which most resembles shadow things, 
As through the mist of years we plunge. 
The rising sun awakes new life, 
From death of youth to manhood's strife ! 

Ah ! we can ne'er forget the day 
When all our dreams took wing and fled! 
The scales from off our eyes were dropped. 
And we saw others as they are — 
Eed-handed, heartless, demon things! 
How life has changed to us since then: 
The past is past, the future stings I 



29 



To learn this early is not well — 
A child in years, a man in thought, 
Means sleepless nights and shipwreck oft. 
But think of gifted Chatterton, 
The poet boy who died a youth! 
The curse of knowledge cradled him, 
Some never wake and learn the truth! 

Thus, with the dawn of manhood's life, 
We see with sorrow's eye tear dim. 
Dark something of a future grim ! 
We see our days of pleasure fled. 
The joyous, buoyant, boyish days 
That make of life a carnival — 
No more are these when youth is dead ! 



30 



^Tis then we wake as from a dream, 
And peer into the future years 
With longings wild and deepest fears ! 
We see in them both joy and pain. 
Such joy as we have known before ? 
The coming years whisper : " No more 
Lost joys come back to us again." 

But youth cries, '^ Let them go, new joys 
Will come as these have done before.*' 
High hopes, illusions, fire the hearts 
Now of this eager restless throng. 
Each some vain phantom will pursue 
Which he will worship as a god, 
But worshipped now to curse erelong ! 



31 



In vain the prayers of all the saints 

To all the powers throned on high! 

Sweet innocence appeals in vain, 

Still rends the air its piteous cry! 

Ah what avail for man to rave? 

Alas! Herculean efforts fail. 

And heroes sink into oblivion's grave! 

false, thrice false, mirage of life! 
It holds enchantments to the eyes, 
It cheats the ears with siren songs. 
It spreads delusions out to man 
That fool and cheat and mock and lie ! 
How they rejoice with demon laugh 
To damn us long before we die ! 



32 



Our youth is dead to-day ! To arms ! 
Our manhood calls for greater things 
Than we have ever dreamed before ! 
It shall not call in vain ! Away 
With false alarms and demon charms! 
The world is old but we are young, 
The world shall be as young as we! 

Then drink we to eternal youth, 
To youth renewed from age to age ! 
Which wars against all ancient wrongs. 
All hoary blood red tyrannies. 
And modern vested infamies I 
God make us one of every tongue, 
Our manhood keep forever young ! 



33 



MANHOOD 

The war the soul doth wage 

To make 

The discord and the strife 

A harmony of life. 



34 



MANHOOD 

I 
A man must mark his course in life 
And hold it ever 'gainst all odds! 
Gaunt poverty and ice-eyed death 
And ignorance and heartlessness 
Are but the goads that urge us on ! 
A man, that is a man manlike. 
Must love the strife and want to fight 
The fight that nature deals his soul ! 
And if we conquer, it is well; 
And if we conquer not, 'tis well. 
We live the life a man should live ! 
Success is not the goal of life. 
To play the game for what it's worth 
Is all the great Jehovah asks ! 

II 

And when I think of those heroic souls 
Who yield allegiance only to the right. 



35 



But still must feel the venom of the world, 

I hear their mighty hearts and voices chant : 

We thank thee, God, that thou hast made us so 

That neither fate, nor man, nor demon damned 

Can take all happiness from out our hearts, 

For thou hast planted in our inmost souls 

A castled citadel to which we fly. 

And there defy the armies of the world 

To make us what we have not made ourselves ! 

Ill 
They find the secret of all life who learn 
From pomp of wealth and folly's pride to turn, 
For happiness that hangs on outward things 
Is but the tinsel life from her lap flings. 

They lose the joy of life and sorrow reap 
Who think that happiness is what we keep. 
Give us this day our daily bread, we pray. 
And find our joy in what we give away. 



36 



IV 

They say that pity is akin to love ! 

Away with such kinship! They are no kin! 

No more than earth bound ostrich is 

To eagle soaring in swift majesty, 

Lone breasting the thin air where never leaps 

The forked lightning^s wild red winged play ! 

Thus ever soareth love, bom of the sun, 

Despot of hearts, grand architect of life! 

Nor hath life labors we would not endure 

To quaff, love, thy heaven nectared sweets ! 

But is defied the power of all men. 

Or fickle fate, or brutal circumstance. 

To make our hearts cry out for pity's tear. 

Nay more ! that e'er could make endurable 

The pity of the angels bright as stars ! 



37 



MY SOUL AND THE SEA 



39 



MY SOUL AND THE SEA 

I match my soul, Sea, 
With all the wonder and the mystery 

There is in thee ! 
For the winds blow and waves do roar 

With all their power, 
My ship sails to its destined shore 
Of England, France, or Singapore 
At its appointed hour! 

I match my soul, sea. 
With all the majesty of thee ! 

ForO! 
When storms o'er thee do sweep. 
And the fierce lightning flashing! 
Ah then it is I love thee most 
As all the fury of thy waves come 
Lashing ! 



41 



For tho they rush and roar 
And stir so vast a seething 
That their convulsive thundering 
Is like offended deity fierce 
Breathing ! 
I match my soul, sea, 
With all the might there is in thee, 
And sail my ship 
To its predestined shore 
Of England, France, or Singapore 
At its appointed hour ! 

I love thy mighty soul, sea. 
Thou hast revealed to me 
In all its wonder and sublimity ! 
For drinking in thy turbulency 

Eoaring ! 

Thy surging spirit's giant force 

Into my heart comes wildly 

Pouring ! 



42 



Then most thy power in me stirs 

Its deepest mysteries, 
And fills me with such ecstasies 

And blest infinities. 
That my soul, too, a boundless 
Ocean is ! 

Ah then it is 
I match my soul, sea. 
With all the might there is in thee ! 
For tho winds blow and waves do roar 
With all their power. 
My ship sails to its destined shore 
Of England, France, or Singapore 
At its appointed hour ! 



43 



PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE 



THE MENAGEEIE 

The silence of the nigtt now reigns 
Throughout the vast menagerie's wide walls. 
Oft have I seen it by fierce daylight gleams 
When life and appetite and restlessness 
Shine in the eyes of creatures iron barred. 

But blessed sleep, in easeful lap of dreams. 
The Ostrich hath afar transported home 
Upon the burning desert's scorching sands. 

The Eagle screams, his Alpine home regained. 
Bathes his gold plumage in his native realm. 
And, glory crowned, amidst the snows he reigns. 
The sun's fierce splendor mirrored in his eye. 



47 



The Hyena's prison bars are loosed, 
He roams his native haunts all dank with gloom, 
The grave-yard's silent haunted homes of death 
He prowls among, and feasts on dead men's bones. 
'Tis well, some men best serve their end when dead. 
And these nocturnal feasts hyenas hold. 

The seal no more in mimic ocean swims. 
The fish doled out by tantalizing hand; 
The ocean's wide expanse he roams in peace. 
Exulting in his new born freedom found; 
On every finny tribe he whets his taste. 
And arctic icebergs know him as of yore. 

Far roams the lion the Algerian plain 
In all his untamed strength and lordly mien. 
And while the majesty of heaven falls 
Upon the soul with all the vastness of 



48 



The stars, the desert, and the coming night, 
The dreaming lion leaps upon his prey. 
But iron bars his headlong spring soon stopped — 
The lion roared in baffled pain and rage ! 

How like that baffled, caged, roaring lion. 
Waked in wild pursuit of falsest dreams, 
And then in frenzied fury beats himself 
^Gainst iron bars that iron still will be. 
There lives another caged creature — man! 

Down ! down ! wild thoughts that fill the brain ! 
Out ! out ! unholy passions of the heart ! 
Cry, down and out, as much as we may please. 
But passion caged creatures are we still ! 

In wildest flight that genius e'er has known, 
I hear the cries of great men iron caged ! 
I hear the throbbing of their white heat thoughts 
Seethe in the cauldron of their flaming souls 
That blaze the way through trackless wastes 
To larger life for which we dream, alas, 
49 



To wake in chains of caged captivity 

Forged, in the crucible of destiny, 

By time and fate and brutal circumstance. 

'Tis then the venomed demon of despair 
Comes measuring the might of crushing folds 
With high born souls of gifted men and great ! 
The moguls, monarch ones of thought and deed, 
Who with the lightning of their radiant minds 
Flash meteoric splendor o'er the earth. 
And show what image God intended man to be! 

Thou dost disdain to snare the common ones 
Of earth, with foreheads low and soulless eyes, 
For their despair is but despair of men. 
But searchest through all ages and all climes 
For victims worthy of thy cunning guile, 
And hurlest them into thy dungeon keeps. 
The horrors, fits, and pangs thou givest them 
Is all despair, the agony of gods! 



50 



But snakey sorceress, despair, 
Thy forked tongue and glaring eyes of hate 
Cannot forever hold, with damned spell, 
The giant ones; for they will pull thy fangs. 
And blind thy eyes, and crush thee dead in dust. 
And roam the green orbed earth in triumph free. 

But oh ! the gifted weaker sons of earth. 
Death poisoned by thy cobra venomed fangs, 
weep, ye cycled ages, o'er their graves ! 
Weep o'er them, weep! ye cycled ages weep! 



51 



THE STOIC 

Beneath the shade of venerable oaks 

An aged stoic lived ; alone he dwelt, 

And gazed unmoved on ever changing sky, 

And mountain scenery that round him smiled 

With myriad tint and swaying loveliness. 

Laughing childhood, youth with purpose high. 
And toil worn man with age drawn nigh to close. 
Passed him unheeded with the slightest glance. 
His only occupation was to muse 
O'er ancient sage's hoarded wealth of lore. 
Or, when the fancy seized him, wander out 
And half the night in aimless wanderings spend. 
Nor joy nor sorrow seemed to know his breast; 
He lived from day to day and year to year 
To feeling too unknown to care to die. 



62 



stoic of the doubly icy heart, 

1 see thee yet, as on that awful night. 
When howling storm on wintry blast 

Did fright both man and beast to terror dumb. 

In thy library sat I listening to 

The wondrous dreams of poets born. 

And naught knew I till thee, the storm, and night 

Together came: Hwas then I heard thy tale. 

" Aye, those, who knew me in life's early mom, 
Saw in my face the home of brightest smiles. 
My laughter born of purest springs within, 
My soul formed when the stars their power lent 
To recreate a human thinking man 
In the heroic mould of ancient days. 

^'The ardent, yearning, godlike qualities. 
That Light the soul with fires caught on high, 



63 



Burned in the secret chambers of my heart. 

And voiced themselves in kindling flashing eye, 

The heaving breast and nervous quivering frame, 

Which constitute the true masonic signs 

That do reveal the starry child of light 

To kindred souls — for him none others know. 

" Then youthful dreams of highest hopes, 
In giant strength, seized all my eager soul 
That burned to plummet to life's secret depths, 
To seize her gems of purest truth and worth, 
And set them blazing in the shining world. 

" I plunged into the herd of heatless men 
With full as sensitive and loving heart 
As ever wept another mortal's woe; 
The springs that open wide the gates of joy, 
And flood the soul with her emotions deep. 
Oft opened as I viewed my smiling kind. 
I knew them not, and happy never known ! 



54 



" Por aye, I was a fond and dreaming fool 
To hope for joy in such a cursed world 
Where men on others' ruin build their fame ! 

" Too soon, alas too soon, I learned to know 
^Tis sharpest pain to deeply feel and know. 
And saddest souls are those who truest know. 
The very things that give us highest joy 
They bring our hearts the deepest pangs of woe, 
And he who would not suffer torturing racks 
Must on the realm of bliss bar well the gates. 

" To steer between these sirens of the soul. 
And fix a middle flight from either reft, 
Denotes a mind of godlike grasp and strength. 
For years and time and knowledge of my kind 
Have made the marble statue of the grave, 
Unchanged save with the knowledge of the right. 
The true ideal of my ripest thought. 
For such an one can battle with the world 
And move a martyred king unto his grave. 
And peaceful fold his robes for silent sleep." 
55 



THE MYSTIC 

Down in the deep blue dark nnfathomed sea, 
A wondrous pearl lay fair, lost long ago. 
Eemembrance of that pearl still lived with men, 
Of golden ages that had blessed the earth 
Before the pearl was lost in the deep sea. 

A sybil old had said : " Who seeks this pearl 
Must never yield to doubt or fear or pain ; 
Tor if he backward turn or yield to these, 
The sea will yawn and gulp him fathoms down, 
The food for grim eyed monsters of her caves. 
And he must brave the terrors of the deep 
In such frail skiff as sails the placid wave 
Where ever blows the wind her softest gales.'' 

Amid the mountain vales there grew a youth 
As pure as a snow plant that blooms in spring. 
Whereon none but the angels ever gazed. 



56 



And when he heard the sybil's prophecy, 

" That fate is mine/' he said, " I sail the sea." 

In darkness and at midnight's holy time. 
When elves and fairies hold high carnival 
And seaward gently blows the rising wind, 
His skiff with silken sail slid from the shore. 
No food took he, no water and no wine: 
The great invisible did nourish him. 

He sailed the seas where warm winds ever blow, 
And shining pearls beneath blue waves are hid ; 
He cleaved the wind and wave and storm and cold 
Swift as a disembodied spirit does. 
His hair grew white as snow, his frosted beard 
Did drape him as a silver cloud of mist. 

Soft flew his bark o'er wreathed curled frothy 

waves, 
Five hundred leagues he left the sea behind. 
From out the vasty deep strange voices called — 
A meteor shot through the northern skies! 
57 



A savage rumbling sound rolled o'er the waves 
From men v^ho agonized by their deep woe, 
Had vowed as offering to the salt sea 
The mariner first coming to their shore: 
And then would be restored the priceless pearl, 
The pearl long lost in darkest deepest sea. 

The sea cried, give me back the pearl ! the pearl ! 
But inland, distant on the mountain tops, 
He heard the h3rmns of all that are to be 
Singing in gladness of deliverance. 

Then to the wind he gave his silken sail. 
And shoreward clove the sunlit tinted waves, 
And flung the shining pearl far through the crowd. 
The multitude was rent this way and that. 
Some cried the pearl ! the pearl ! and some the sea ! 
Some say the sharks leapt forth with glist'ning 

fangs. 
And some that angel wings flashed through the air. 



68 



THE LIGHT BURNS DOWN 

They hear the whirring of soft wings, 
The hush of lovely silent things 
That softly float 

In dreamland's boat 
From sun-kissed shores of memory ! 



THE CHOIR INVISIBLE 

At his death all the nations of the earth mourned 
but the choirs of heaven rejoiced. 

— Epitaph of a musician. 

I. THE LIGHT BURNS DOWN 

Before a soul that's dead we stand ! 
It follows us through every land, 
But nowhere can be found 
When — the light — burns — down. 

Then comes that dread first time 
When we do feel deep sorrow's iron hand, 
A laugh then pains with jarring sound 
When — the light — burns — down. 

The soul fades as a frosty rime, 
While we do roam, alas, in every clime 
For that which nowhere can be found 
When — the light — burns — down . 



61 



II THE CHOIR INVISIBLE 

Ah ! he, who would thy blessed music hear, 
Must wake in stillest night and steal anear ! 

For thou no more in light of day doth sing 
Though worshippers bring richest offering. 

But seated on thy waving throne in air, 
Fanned by etherial winds, without a care, 

Thou singest in the choirs of the sky, 
TJnheedful of a mortal standing nigh. 

Who hears the magic of thy wondrous song 
That echoes of high heaven's court prolong ! 



62 



Drawn by thy music's witchery of sound. 
The spirits of the air with me draw round. 

Imploring thee, with radiant seraph glance. 
To softly sing the angel heaven dance ! 

thy wayward, changeful, and elusive art! 
It soothes the aching pain and charms the heart! 

It makes us scorn the jibes of every fate ! 
And with a heart triumphant and elate. 

Unfaltering! we welcome any thing 

The darkest night of life to us can bring ! 

No more! no more! can terrors of the night. 
Nor cringing fears of day the soul affright 



63 



That hears the magic of the mystic song 
Thou singest to the trans- Jordanic throng! 

Thy message down the ringing ages send 
Till all the worlds to thy great power bend; 

Breathe thy transforming spell upon the earth, 
Thy song sing on from nation's birth to birth! 



THE END 



64 



